A couple weeks from now we’re going to start serializing my 1992 book Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions, Battle Foreign Competition, and Still Can’t Get a Date. It’s the book that was the basis for my 1996 documentary TV series Triumph of the Nerds and ultimately led to this column starting on pbs.org in 1997.

What goes around comes around.

We’ll be serializing the complete 1996 paperback edition which is 102,000 words in length, pumping the book onto the intertubes at around 2,000 words per day. In about 51 days, give or take a bit, we’ll put the entire work on the web with no ads and no subscription fee, just lots and lots of words.

Our ultimate goal in doing this is to prepare yet another revised edition for 2013 but to do it in a completely new way… with your help. We’re going to publish the book online as a blog just like this one and ask you to comment on it. Tell us what’s funny, what’s moving, what’s simply wrong, and tell us how you know that. If you were there at the time, say so. If you remember it differently than I did, say that, too. We’ll gather all those comments, I hope thousands of them, and my book buddy Parampreet Singh and I will carve the best of them into a new annotated version of the book that will not only expand the past but also extend into the future.

Those who want their submissions credited will get their wish. Those who want to remain anonymous can do that, too.

A few weeks after the serialization is over we’ll publish a hybrid eBook you can toggle back and forth between 1996 and 2013, with the 2013 version being probably twice as long or more — at least 200,000 words.

Of course I do this so my wife can buy shoes, but it’s more than that. Accidental Empires was a seminal book that inspired a lot of people to become involved in technology and even to start their own businesses. You’d be amazed at the number of successful companies that were inspired by that book — a book that is lost to the current generation of startup founders. If we can bring back the best parts and make them even better and more relevant to today we can inspire hundreds of more such companies… and buy shoes.

We’ll get this going as quickly as we can but right now I’d like to throw an idea out for your consideration. There’s a chapter in the book (I’ve been re-reading it) about the seven plus or minus two numerals that we all can keep in our short term memories at any moment. I presented this as a figure of merit for nerds since the best programmers in those days were ones who seemed capable of keeping their code — all of it — in their heads at one time. If this was a good proxy for programming ability, I suggested, then we ought to have a contest to find the best short term memories in America and see if those people could become great programmers.

Lately I’ve been thinking of something very similar, though tailored a bit for the current era.

America is dropping behind in technology because our education system is fading, we’re told. Now this doesn’t happen to be true at all as I showed recently with six different studies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) funded mainly by the U.S.Department of Defense. But what is true, I think, is that the rest of the world is catching up. America’s inherent technical advantage isn’t what it used to be. This is point #1.

Point #2 is that India and China, especially, are emerging as technology powerhouse nations primarily on the basis of their immense populations. If technical aptitude is equally distributed and nurtured, then countries with three times the population of the United States will nurture three times as many geniuses. The only way to compete with that is to: 1) get those foreign geniuses to move to America, or; 2) come up with a more efficient way of recruiting the best and the brightest American students to high tech — to increase our own genius yield.

Point #3 has everything to do with the role of geniuses in building new industries: they are absolutely vital. I made this point very strongly in Accidental Empires, that the function of the genius is to make possible advances that would be otherwise impossible. What this means in the technical and ultimately economic competition among nations is that a few very smart people can make the difference. We are mistaken to some extent, then, when we worry about average test scores and average performance. Sure these things are important, but they aren’t the key to future industries and breakthroughs, since those will be made pretty much entirely by a very small number of quite non-average people.

Finding and nurturing those non-average folks, then, is not only a function vital to continued American success as a world power, it is also a heck of a lot easier to do than jacking-up everyone’s SAT scores by 50 points.

Which brings me back to the idea of a test or a contest that I’ve been calling Geek Idol.

America and the world are mad for talent competitions so I think we should have one for finding the best people to become computer scientists and engineers. Let’s start a discussion right here of what such a competition would look like, what it would measure, and how it would work. Remember this will only scale properly if we also make it entertaining. It has to be fun or it won’t happen. And I’m quite determined that this should get a chance to happen.

Once the idea is fleshed out a bit, I predict that some person or organization with money to spare will emerge to fund it.

If you are referring to Anina, the woman in the red hat, above, she’s my friend but not my wife. I’m sure her feet are lovely but frankly I haven’t looked. Mary Alyce, who IS my wife, has size 5 feet that seem to anger the women of Japan whenever we go there…

Alex Finkelstein
November 12, 2012 at 2:47 am

Hi Bob,
I think this show has to be arranged around challenges in 2 stages. Not necessarily riddles or resolve some math equation but a challenge to which the participants need to provide a solution. So, the first stage is to present a challenge (or series of challenges, to build up tension). and the second stage is to actually build the solution that caters the challenge. What I am thinking is McGyver meets Iron chef kind of thing – in which the challenge is to resolve a problem, either with a limited set of tools or just some parts (like in Apollo 13 situation). It can be spiced up by “secret ingredient” in which all the competitors get the same component and they need to do/create/resolve challenge using it.
The challenges can be either created specifically for the show, OR, more interestingly, a real challenges that can be submitted by companies, startups, whoever.
It needs to be decided whether this is an individual or a team competition.
The winner, will get funding for his idea/startup/studies.
I think that the main issue will not be finding the outstanding engineers/programmers/geniuses as participants but rather the people who will create the challenges for the show as well as evaluate the solutions.

John Mills
November 12, 2012 at 7:18 am

Here in the UK we had a program called “Scrapheap Challenge” in which teams are given the challenge to build something to achieve a task. The scrapheap is seeded with the materials to enable at least two of the most probable solutions, but they do have to figure out what to do and get there first.
Some of my favourite episodes featured a team of American geeks who did just that but with a lot more math and gadgets than other teams. Show your workings!
Would that do ?
It was reasonably popular here and ran for about a decade.

Ben Franske
November 12, 2012 at 8:24 am

FYI The Learning Channel (oh how they’ve gone downhill) brought “scrapheap” to the US in the late 90s/early 00s as “junkyard wars”. I think the team you’re thinking of was the New England Rubbish Deconstruction Team (NERDs). This was a great show. Unfortunately it got popular here too (well at least for cable tv at the time) and TLC decided they needed an American version with an American host. It was never the same and went down relatively quickly. I think I still actually have most of the episodes on VHS somewhere, I may just have to go dig them out and re-watch them.

The executive producer for Scrapheap Challenge at Channel 4 in the UK, where the series originated, was Sara Ramsden, who also executive produced my own Triumph of the Nerds. Small world, eh?

John Reece
November 18, 2012 at 6:21 pm

Same thing happened with “Top Gear”, an American version that lacked the punchy, sarcastic reviewing of the British original. Especially entertaining was the British crews occasional giddy, high-speed expedition to the wide open spaces of the American west, which I frequent.

JJones
November 12, 2012 at 3:05 am

“Geekled”

Make the competition about fixing and improving something the audience would have at home. You’ve got product placement opportunities, items the general public can recognize and maybe even learn more about ( which might encourage budding engineers and scientists to start disassembling Mom’s dishwasher ). Cool things might include turning a Roomba into a virtual presence robot or showcasing licence-plate recognition technology. Automating a beer fridge or the office coffee machine might be competitions too. The Halloween and April 1’st episodes might be interesting.

It might even encourage manufacturers to make their products hacker friendly to get on the show ( like IRobot making a serial interface port standard on every Roomba from ’97 on ). Their insurance companies might not approve though!

Just kick’n around the idea.

Kevin G
November 13, 2012 at 9:32 am

Definitely like the idea of making things around the house, or making things around the house more useful. Solar panel projects, inverters, etc. If you could think of anything useful to do with license plate readers, other than what they are currently used for, you might make some friends.
I went into Home Depot yesterday to ask about solar panels, the answer was no, but they would gladly hook me up with a company that would cover my house with them and sell the power. Seems to me that Home Depot should be the “place to go” for panels, just not yet.

Ronc
November 14, 2012 at 2:04 am

Home Depot might have been the place to go for solar if the idea was to charge low voltage batteries with solar. But these days people want to make their meter run backwards whenever the sun shines. The meter operates at 240 volts, well above the 24 volts considered low by the electrical code. Hence, for safety reasons it is expected that “construction” would be done by a licensed “electrical contractor” who would first obtain a “permit”. So you could do it yourself if you know how, but most likely you woud buy the equipment from an electrical supply house.

Gnarfle
November 14, 2012 at 2:43 am

Try Harbor Freight.
Or Amazon.

Kevin G
November 14, 2012 at 5:28 am

Thanks gnarfle, Amazon certainly has the better deals but Harbor is just down the street…
Ronc, point taken…I have a 1000 watt inverter from a bank back up UPS, It seems I’d almost have to remortgage my house to buy 1k of panels, reminds me of memory prices in the ’80s

Ronc
November 14, 2012 at 2:54 pm

To hook it up to the grid you need more than an inverter. You need it to synchronize the waveform before connecting and keep it synced.

Kevin G
November 15, 2012 at 5:32 am

I know, I wouldn’t even consider it anyway with only 1kw. If you look back up to my original suggestion, a syncing inverter was on my wish list though

Kevin G
November 15, 2012 at 5:36 am

Oops sorry, I had suggested it then it got lost in a revision, I’m done, have a great day Ron

I still have the hard cover, and re-read it from time to time. I just wish I could have had you sign it.

An ebook will be so I can down load it.

Doug Johnson
November 12, 2012 at 4:42 am

I love the idea of the game and it is the only way to make this acceptable.

Your original premise was (and still is) correct about geniuses, but somewhere in that same time frame the US decided that everyone gets the same deal and that everyone should be treated the same regardless of natural ability or subsequent work. And that tends to bury the genius (or at least those who might be geniuses if we could find them) because it is hard, as a child, being singled out and our system seems determined to make it easier for the exceptional to fade to gray.

If everyone’s child is a potential genius according to our social theory, then real geniuses point up the ugly truth and we don’t want to look at that.

My only concern with the game is that it will promote the same kind of genius bashing that we see with the competition shows…we love to see the contestants fail. But it will, at least, bring out the contestants…at least the ones who are not too busy plotting the takeover of the world in their parents’ basement.

I read the original “Accidental Empires” and have recommended it over the years. I’m really glad it’s getting a reboot. At that point I had already had and sold a business and realized that, while I’m smarter than the average bear, I’m probably not a genius, just really good at supporting them.

stu madidon
November 12, 2012 at 7:59 pm

The Genetic Studies of Genius began in 1921 (and still running) tracked 1,444 genius level children.

They have pretty much concluded “that intellect and achievement are far from perfectly correlated”.

Basically, the genius kids they identified didn’t turn out any better than a random selection of children would have.

So bringing over random geniuses from India and China is not necessarily going to be any different than bringing over a random group.

Geeks have built the technology, but there’s always been someone who’s been better at the business side. If you get a combination of the two then you can build great things. Woz and Jobs were that combination. Gates had Allen.

Geeks tend to be very good at one particular subject, at the total exclusion of personality. Finding a Geek which has that rare combination of technical ability and the ability to communicate and produce ideas is where you find that magic spark. Metcalf could be one?

You need to decide if you’re going after Geek or Geek with magic spark? But I do agree that for the western work to prosper we need to encourage the brightest as their genuis filters down.

I think you make a good point here about the spark. It’s definitely there in some people: Bob Metcalfe and John Warnock come immediately to mind. If you spend any time with either of them you’ll see their spark lies in an ability to communicate that goes beyond the geeky norm. I think it comes down to a desire not just to communicate but to be understood. There’s a tendency in geek culture to ignore or belittle those who can’t understand which ends up limiting the success of the genius. Metcalfe and Warnock both quickly understood that it wasn’t enough to be the smartest guy in the room. They had to also be the best communicator. This means more than just being able to work with others, by the way. It means functioning in a way that drives progress.

PK de Cville
November 12, 2012 at 5:35 am

First, don’t make it about who’s the most fun to watch. It’s who’s made the best invention. I think the roomba robots would be a great starting point and I think they would gladly sponsor roomba challenges now and then.

Also, how about crazy challenges like: using everything in a box and nothing else do xyz?

Prizes: include a mix of $$$, things, and scholarships.

Ironically, I don’t see sw as interesting on a show… But the use of sw to get some challenge done would be.

As someone who’s been following your trail since the first Nerds (don’t forget the second series that covered the Internet!) I’m looking forward to participating in your next adventure.

Patrick
November 12, 2012 at 6:25 am

In true geek spirit, this competition (should it come to fruition) should be broadcast over Twit.tv. They already have a dedicated audience (full of tech enthusiasts), and have experience in broadcasting live over the internet. They also make their shows available for download. Moreover, Twit.tv has a group of companies who regularly advertise. Partnering with Twit.tv would give you equipment, knowledge, experience, and outside funding.

Chicken
November 12, 2012 at 6:27 am

The trick is for a culture to be highly tolerant of diversity and change. This is not ethnicity or skin color. It is the acceptance of people who are way outside the social norms.

Think of Galileo, Newton, Mozart, Turing, Hughes, Oppenheimer, Jobs, Branson. In hindsight, of course, many of the crazies appear perfectly rational. The point is that we cannot know until after the fact.

The more rigid, monocultural and protective of the status quo a society is, the less innovation occurs. That is why regulations, political correctness and fear of failure lead to stagnation.

Robert Squitieri
November 12, 2012 at 7:20 am

Here is a competition that already is here and now.

We need more high schools to compete to win. They built an electric car competitive with the world.

Program: FRONTLINE
Episode: Fast Times at West Philly High

July 17, 2012 magazine: Fast Times at West Philly High and Middle School Moment

If this is to hard. How about a best battery competition. Light a bulb and recharge the battery fast. 20 minute limit.

David Rugge
November 12, 2012 at 7:25 am

A key component of the show could be audience participation. Open Source all code written for the contests and let the audience improve it.

Firstly lose the “competition” approach. In science, engineering, arts and real life, lots of people can win in different ways. Only in artificial competitions do you need “a” winner, and therefore end up with statements like “It’s so hard to choose, you’re both brilliant in your own ways, but I have to eliminate one of you”.

Therefore, instead of sorting everyone by aptitude and chopping off the worst performers, set a rising benchmark, and anyone who beats it stays on. Prize money (or equivalent) should be intelligently distributed, rather than given to the last man standing.

In a knock out, the winner is defined by the aptitude of the second best. In benchmarking, anyone who beats the first benchmark is a worthy competitor, and we get to see the real upper limits of the best competitor.

Alex Finkelstein
November 12, 2012 at 10:15 am

You are right although as far as the TV format is considered, it requires this kind of element (competition creates drama and contrasts – win vs. lose, etc.). I think that this effect can be dampened by making the contestants work in a team and then, the “team” wins, so that many people stay in the game. Also, I think that even the participants that don’t win, still enjoy the ride and have the chance to get some recognition as being smart and talented.

dcline
November 13, 2012 at 8:57 am

This is a great idea but it sounds like where you would lose an American audience. All major American sports need to have a winner. Football, Baseball and Basketball all just keep going until there is a winner. For some reason spending extra time playing it makes it more fun. A fact that probably won’t translate to a “geek” sport. Americans just aren’t programmed to accept that everyone wins because they did equally well (or equally poorly).
Maybe you could have primary, secondary and tertiary challenges. This gives you a point system that would make it more akin to Boxing. Although it would be hard to do without starting down the counterproductive path of having “one correct answer.”
Another idea might be iterative challenges. Whoever solves problem A then has to adapt their solution to problem B. This would seem to add a “real world” competitive element.

BS
November 13, 2012 at 1:12 pm

Agreed!

All these so called “competitions” are so orchestrated and boring.

“Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock! Who will win? (dramatic music) Tune in after this
commercial break to find out”

And the panel interview are awful. I think trying to force faux drama into a
geek show will fall flat on its face.

Most so-called “Reality Shows” are just as bad or worse, where most of the drama looks like its instigated by the shows producers.

“Yeah, I know you parents said ‘Don’t do this’, but it would make good TV”,
or
“Why don’t you punch that guy in the face and let’s see what happens”

chiph
November 12, 2012 at 9:57 am

What about a “Where are they now?” segment?

I know that Architext became Excite at some point, but what about the others?

Michael Chiu
November 12, 2012 at 10:20 am

I think the ideas brought forth so far are excellent. To add to that, I think it would be good to bring in corporate sponsors, or geek celebrities into the mix. I think this would get more of mainstream America into the mix if they can identify with brands that endorse the show, as well with the hardcore geeks who can identify with certain luminaries in the tech world.

For example, someone like Steve Wozniak could be used as a “mentor” to a team, similar to how the dancers in “Dancing With the Stars” have a trainer to work with them. Then, the challenges presented in the show would be problems that are presented by different companies like Intel, Apple, Google, etc.

I use Steve Wozniak as an example primarily because as a young child growing up in the 1980s, I remember holding the Woz as a bit of a personal hero, or role model, and I think that featuring “mentors” in the show would inspire young people to do something in the world of technology with similar role models.

The use of corporate sponsors presenting challenges would promote the validity of the show, as well as provide prizes such as a guaranteed contract of employment, and other perks related to the company.

Anyway… just my $0.02…

Adam
November 12, 2012 at 12:06 pm

You could start with the idea of a hackathon ( / hack day / hackfest / codefest) which can have the basic ingredients of competitiveness, tangible outputs, time limits, development over that limited time period (all of which can be commentated on), there can be a level playing field with some sort of fixed environment….

Whether the objective of the hackathon is pre-specified, or whether just the tools and data available are specified can be thought through….

The best competitors from the hackathon day could then go through to a next stage in the Dragons Den/Shark Tank type scenario where they pitch their ideas to venture capitalists….

Or, like the Apprentice, competitors could be set specific technology tasks…..

There are so many formats to draw from….

Eric B
November 12, 2012 at 1:05 pm

The only contest shows that I watch besides a ton of PBS is Wipeout and Dancing with the stars (I like to shake it too). I watch Wipeout for the nearly un-politically-correct commentary and the ever changing array of physical puzzles people have to bounce in/off/under/over/through and ultimately splash dow into mud/water/oatmeal/goopy stuff. In short wipeout is for my 12yr old boy humor side. Dancing with the stars is really for the pure fun and titilation of watching gorgeous women dancing to (often) live music, to which I have found new artists that I have since downloaded from iTunes like Kat DeLuna’s Whine up. I also predict the scores of the judges and I’m usually pretty close which my wife and I often talk or argue about during the show.

For any show to succeed I think it needs to more than just pure mental stimulation which is exausting, you need to appeal to the lower levels too. I love to watch Nova and Nature but there’s only so much of that I can take before I watch Mythbusters to see something blow up. How many times have you watched America’s Funniest Home Videos and giggled at some unsuspecting dad getting whacked in the cajones by an errant (usually) flying object.

beTheBall
November 12, 2012 at 1:27 pm

All the hackfests will be fine to determine who is the ubergeek and may even reveal entrepreneurial capability. Doesn’t sound like entertaining TV though. You need to throw in some dating related challenges to help choose the winner.

Like the title of your book says, ubergeeks can create/take over whole industries through their genius and/or cunning. Can they get a date though?

TemporalBeing
November 12, 2012 at 1:27 pm

But don’t you know, Bob, that Jonny & Janey’s self-esteem must be protected, they must think highly of themselves, and must be awarded just like Mr and Ms. Genius over there?

All sarcasm aside, I do think competition is a good way to stimulate things; but we can’t have competition where everyone wins – that just isn’t competition, yet that’s the been the education psycology since the mid 1980’s – and one that is hurting our schools and (even) businesses.

John
November 12, 2012 at 1:34 pm

Finding smart people is relatively easy. I think the problem is elsewhere. First companies don’t want as many smart people these days. I’d guess they hire 1/20 of the rate they did 25 years ago. It comes down to it is often cheaper to buy ideas with whole companies than it is to cultivate your own innovation.

While its easy to find really smart people, it is harder to find smart people who can produce innovative and great ideas. It is like many things — a few people generate the real value of a whole department. How do you find people who can produce results?

Your use of a photo from the “Big Bang Theory” was appropriate. Another problem with smart people is their lack of social and political sense. As Steve Jobs noted, they do great work but they’re a pain to manage. Most managers don’t want to manage pains and in time the work lives of smart people become miserable. When you hire smart people, how do you manage them? How do you get the most possible out of them? How do you keep them out of trouble?

I like working with smart people. Over the years I’ve noticed they have the same needs as most people. They want to be respected and kept in the loop. They often don’t understand the intricacies of running a business. However if you explain it to them, they often will appreciate it and be less of a pain. More important, sometimes they find ways to help. One of the problems with business is managements reluctance to work with their smart people.

In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon says something that makes his friends pause and reflect. Penny asks about it. They tell her they just saw a moment of personal growth in Sheldon. We all have faults. If people can not be open and honest with you, you can never improve.

Mike in Palo Alto
November 12, 2012 at 1:36 pm

FYI, the actual size of short-term memory in a population of people turns out to be about 3.5 items. You can see this every day in how we present information like phone numbers (nnn-nnn-nnnn) and SSNs (nnn-nn-nnnn), not to mention UNIX commands. Miller mis-interpreted his original data in 1956 but wrote a great paper that ingrained the number 7 into everyone’s brain. Many, many further studies starting in the early 1960s have shown that the actual size of the average short-term memory is 4 at best.

Thanks very much for passing that along, Mike. When I took a few psychology and brain biology courses in college in the early ’90s, they were still repeating the 7 +/- 2 figure everywhere.

Cringe, programmers that can keep all their code in their head are using long-term memory, and there is no correlation I’m aware of (certainly not in all cases) between having exceptional long-term memory and having exceptional short-term memory (I personally have a better long-term memory than average, but not better short-term). I can keep all the elements of a complex program in my head, but not every line of code.

I am personally getting kind of tired of everything needing to be turned into a reality competition show, and I would not watch Geek Idol, but probably good things would come of your idea, were it to come to pass.

Excellent points regarding focusing entirely on average students to the possible exclusion of attention that extraordinary ones may need.

Jason Doege
November 12, 2012 at 1:54 pm

These things do already exist to some extent in high-school robotics competitions (BEST, FIRST, etc.) and at the collegiate level in things like the solar-powered car competitions.

I think the big trick is to make it entertaining to a broader audience. The Junkyard Wars and Robot Wars shows were reasonable examples of this.

If this were to have any real variety in terms of the challenges then you really need to have it be a team challenge. Otherwise you would just be seeing the limited set of a) geniuses who b) can get things done and c) are jacks-of-all-trades.

Too bad Jef Raskin has died – I bet you would have gotten lots of corrections from him.

I think the ability to keep a whole program in your head is unrelated to short term memory. It is more like being able to remember all the lines in a whole play, specially if you are the one who wrote it.

Alan Kay participated in a TV program called “Quiz Kids” when he was ten. This seemed to be popular back then, but would probably be considered too boring today.

I don’t know what was causing it, but something on this website was giving my IE8 fits. So I added the URLs you mentioned, as well as others from this site’s source code, to my hosts file. Now it is working smooth. Thanks.

Ronc
November 22, 2012 at 12:53 pm

There’s a lot more here: http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm . I noticed that in another article about blocking domains with the Hosts file for Windows 8, it may also be necessary to change a setting in Windows Defender, otherwise Defender will “defend” against and reverse your changes to Hosts when you access the Internet.

Donp
November 26, 2012 at 3:04 pm

I will give this list a test run. It is twice the size of my current one, so I am probably overdue. Thanks.

scott
November 12, 2012 at 3:12 pm

I think the idea of teams should be dropped. For big complex projects that need implementing, even implementing with additional good ideas, I think they work well. However, I don’t think they conceive the next great thing.

Jeremy Chappell
November 12, 2012 at 3:19 pm

Bob, I don’t think it is “people” that is the problem, it’s a LACK of change.

The myth is IT is a fast moving field, but it’s actually molasses slow. If we think about operating systems, where are the new ones? Windows is still based on “NT”, which despite the name was hardly cutting edge when it was introduced. While OS X is actually based on CMU Mach (a *nix style system) even older tech. These things are well understood, and the skills and knowledge are fully distributed at this point – so why build anything in the UK/US? It is FAR cheaper to build it in “emerging” markets (which at this point we should think of as “maturing markets”).

Where are the new ideas? Are genuinely new ideas even possible at this point?

Gregg D.
November 12, 2012 at 5:07 pm

Bob:

Whatever form this “Geek Idol” show may take, you have already hit upon the one ingredient necessary for critical mass: Namely, this venture must incorporate Wil Wheaton in some significant way.

D
November 12, 2012 at 5:48 pm

I don’t know about the exact format for the show…

…but as for the prizes: forget scholarships to MIT, etc. Offer actual dates! You’ll get just the population of contestants you need.

I work with engineers and the very bright ones are not noticed by management, cause management does not know enough to recognize them (kruger-dunning effect). The reason that the bright people often do not succeed is they have poor communication skills. Look at Steve Jobs, he was both bright and an exceptional communicator. I think it takes both to innovate. The rest of the rabble can’t tell a good idea from a bad one, cause we aren’t smart enough.

Sounds like a good idea but there is an issue that the other commentators have missed which is crucial to the fully realized genius and that is support for revolutionary development. This never happens in established companies and rarely happens in start-ups. Even when it does happen in a start-up, it is limited by scope of the company business model and the social conventions of the day.

Testing for revolutionary thinking by contest is limited by the conventions of the contest. For example, the real test might be to find the fastest way of getting a person from point A to point B. The contest gets created by gathering all of the potential geniuses and posing the challenge “figure out how to get horse (and rider) to move faster between points A and B”. While the contestants might creatively apply booster rockets, or heavy stimulant doping, and other creative apparent solutions no practical solution is likely due to the limits inherent in the way the contest is written. Is this any real indicator of the more successful “geniuses” winning the contest being able to succeed in real life?

Part of my normal line of work is to design within FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Arrays). I have worked with Altera and Xilinx parts and I have used their “core” generators as building blocks from time-to-time. But the greatest joy of design is to explore original architectures in digital logic for high bandwidth processing. Except for the natural I/O boundaries of the FPGA chip itself, many new projects are “tabula rasa” (clean slate) inside the chip.

I have a difficult time translating what I do in chip design with revolutionary concepts and the activities of a public contest. It seems to me to be a challenge in how to design a tabula rasa contest and have it be entertaining. When the slate is clean, the media is pretty boring and original creative design takes time and if it is truly revolutionary will move in unpredictable directions.

To boil it down to basic principles, if a concept is entertaining it is well understood and therefore not really original. Conversely, if a concept is truly original there is a high probability that most observers “wont’ get it” and it won’t be very entertaining.

I’ve had this same problem with writing patents. Explain a new idea in conventional terms and the patent reviewer will not see it as original. Explain it in new terms and the patent reviewer won’t understand it. Either way the likelihood is high the patent will not be issued unless you walk the thin line between convention and unique.

The objective of the contest is to find geniuses and are you detecting the real target population with an entertaining show?

Don H
November 12, 2012 at 11:19 pm

TED has a good format, but is kind of disjointed if you are trying to follow the development of an idea.

The stream of Science Fair projects or PhD theses may make a good bubble source for ideas and from this source may come some good presenters and the source of follow-on projects.

These follow-on projects are what I think this series is looking for.

Combine these with the Luminaries and Entrepreneurs of LEMON leadership (Brett Johnson) to focus projects, funnel to Networkers who make them available to Organizers to advance for the show — then and you might even generate some real advances that Managers can yet turn into real products.

Maarten Janssen
November 13, 2012 at 12:28 am

Hi Bob,

I like your idea for Geek Idol.

Here in The Netherlands there was this show ‘Het beste idee van Nederland’, The best idea of The Netherlands. It was just like Idols, but then for people to show off their inventions. Anyone who thought they had something interesting to show to a jury could participate. Most of these ideas and prototypes didn’t work at all or were downright silly, but some of them were really clever. A jury checked whether the invention was new, there was no patent yet and picked the inventions they thought were the best to go to round two.

In the second round each candidate had to present a working prototype to the jury. If the jury thought the presentation was good enough they went on to later rounds where they would get help from experts to convert their prototypes into real products and the audience could vote for the best prototype. Eventually the winner would have his or her invention produced and sold in stores throughout The Netherlands.

It was a really funny show and it has aired for several seasons. Later seasons also had a theme such as the greenest idea. This was an additional category of inventions candidates could participate in. Two of the hosts who presented Idols in our country presented it in a way you wouldn’t expect of them if you had seen Idols. Ok the show wasn’t really about hardcore engineering but it showed how someone’s idea gets converted into a real product over time and the struggles they face along the way. It got many people interested in engineering. The thing that struck me most is that it were not just geeky guys showing up, but men, women and even lots and lots of young boys and girls with remarkable ideas.

Paul o'Sullivan
November 13, 2012 at 2:48 am

Bob

I read your book in the 80s & found it astounding.
I take great exception, as a non-American, to the point 2 in your article.
“countries with three times the population of the United States will nurture three times as many geniuses. The only way to compete with that is to: 1) get those foreign geniuses to move to America”
Why is having competition from China & India a bad thing ? If their geniuses advance things, so much the better for all os us. Should technological progress be only for the benefit of the United States ?

It would have been truly astounding to read in the 1980s my 1992 book.

I’m not opposed to India and China but I happen to live and work in the USA, therefore I have what I believe is a perfectly understandable interest in the continued success of my own nation.

If you are eager to throw your country under the bus, then go ahead, but I’d like to help make things better around here.

Arthur
November 13, 2012 at 4:12 am

The BBC version of “The Apprentice” has weeks where the teams have to compete to develop the best new product. These have included mobile phone apps, children’s toys and consumer products. The winner is judged either by a panel of experts or by which app gets the most downloads. The teams get help from industry experts but get a chance to show their creativity. The result is often entertaining and enlightening and the team dynamics can be interesting. In my opinion any show about engineering creativity has to acknowledge the role of teams, prior art, current best practice and safety. There is another UK show called the “Gadget Show” where they have challenges to develop such things as remote control road cars and then race them against real cars on a race track. I find this unwatchable because there is no discussion of safety during the development process.

Let’s not forget that there exist a bunch of challenges that already tap into some of the brightest kids out there- Scripps spelling challenge, Dean Kamen’s FIRST challenges, NAE’s Grand challenges, DARPA. The idea of the challenge isn’t new but if we can bring it to broadcast and make it interesting to the viewers, then we have a chance of longevity and growth. I’m thinking multiple challenges that run for a year. Each week follows people/groups of a specific challenge and a round robin to view all the participants in following weeks. This would enable editing to keep the episodes filled with the most interesting moments. The individuals/groups would need to supply their own footage in this setup as the cost to fund multiple crews to cover all participants would be enormous. I think the specifics of the challenges is not exactly trivial but not difficult and could be worked out later.

Michael
November 13, 2012 at 7:00 am

We we think of “nerds” most think of the technical expertise required to be a true nerd. For a real game changer should the “Geek Idol” possess charisma and personality (think Steve Jobs) or technical expertise (think Wozniak)?

I’ve been around a lot of brilliant engineers with incredible ideas but didn’t necessarily had the personal skills or aptitude to bring the big ideas to fruition. If you have a great idea you have to be able to get out and sell it and make people believe in the idea.

jimbob
November 13, 2012 at 7:25 am

Why not a version of ‘the apprentice’
You set teams of nerds tasks to do technical stuff (whether its creating new phone apps, or fixing open source bugs, or creating websites for charities…..etc).

Would be useful to demonstrate that being a team player can be v. important (some people want to work in teams – and don’t appreciate how many people you have to usually work with in technical jobs)
Might actually produce something useful, and give an insight how really good people work.

Rich W
November 13, 2012 at 9:50 am

Look at what First Robotics is doing on the High School level. I started watching the competitions when my son got involved, and found them very entertaining – even for non-engineers and programmers. I continue to attend the State regional in my area, even though I don’t have a rooting interest now my son has moved on to college. I think it would be great if the competitions had a television audience, and if the series could follow the various teams through the design and build stage so much the better. Taking this from amateur to professional would be very entertaining.

Charlie
November 13, 2012 at 10:49 am

I look forward to reading your book and comparing it with the recently concluded History Channel mini series, “The Men Who Made America”. The series chronicled the rise of America as a world power following the Civil War through the lives of the 5 titans of that era, Cornelius Vanderbilt, John D Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, and Henry Ford.

I am kicking myself for not being able to remember who made this comment (in a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California). The only way this country can continue to compete with nations with populations like China and India is to bring Latin America and other parts of Asia into our talent pool. This requires immigration reform. His idea struck me. I am a huge NASA fan, and the face of NASA is made up of the most talented faces around the world. On any given NASA video presentation, you are likely to see people from Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, and the Slavic nations. I don’t think I can list them all. NASA attracts the best talent from all over the world. Our entire nation should do the same.

I look forward to a day when the “American League Baseball” includes Cuba, Mexico, and all Latin and Caribbean nations. Likewise, critics fret that the people of the world no longer consider the US the top destination for their ambitions. We need to fix that. That is our best quality and our best investment.

So, don’t limit your show to US citizens and residents. Find talent from all over the world.

peterfoldi
November 13, 2012 at 12:36 pm

http://ch24.org/
The most important ability of a geek is not the short term memory, but staying awake productively for 24hours

sport
November 13, 2012 at 2:54 pm

I think your genius theory is a load of crap – how many times through history was the discovery of one thing the result of an oops experiment done for another purpose?

And all those non-geniuses are the ones that make sure that technology transfer happens and they also make the applications occur that the original “genius” never even thought about.

i think you need to rethink why we want those ‘”huddled masses yearning to breathe free” since they are the ones that have all of the other ancillary ideas that flesh-out that little spark and see how something seemingly insignificant can be put to use.

tim w
November 13, 2012 at 4:38 pm

I have the book and both films. I still have my Altar computer and all of the add ones. I really enjoyed the book because I lived the days.

Gnarfle
November 13, 2012 at 7:09 pm

John Taylor Gatto in his book “Dumbing Us Down” (which oddly enough, came out during the same period as Accidental Empires) argues there and elsewhere that what we consider genius is as common as dirt. Public school has been designed to turn the majority of us into the “average” person we all seem to be.

I have four sisters, one of whom is a member of Mensa. When I suggested that every human being is capable of functioning at the “genius” level if only for 15 minutes, the look she gave me spoke volumes of her belief that she is somehow a superior being and she should be in charge of the rest of us mere mortals. As an adult, I can see how she always refuses to admit failure. Even as a child . . . she didn’t screw up making pancakes; she invented “scrambled” pancakes.

Occasionally, I lose patience with a well-known writer who comments on the issues of the day. He cannot hide his contempt for black folk though he works very hard to disguise it. He seems to think that the white man is superior to all other forms of life on the planet. I’d be curious to drop this “genius” into equatorial Africa with just a knife and a length of rope and see how well he would fare.

I was attempting to solve a computer problem for a friend when she commented that so-and-so thought I was a genius. “I used to think that, too!”
I’ve learned not to confuse obsessive-compulsive behavior with talent and skill.

We’ve all had moments when our education and experience have failed us, and yet, we somehow come up with an idea and a way to implement it that seems obvious in retrospect. But, at the time, we were just feeling our way through it.

This is a great point. I have three sons ages 10, 8, and 6 and they have a genius mother. I watch with alarm these kids swimming through the education system, which doesn’t appear to serve them at all well.

Channing, my oldest, IS Steve Jobs with all the good and bad aspects of that personality. I told this to Steve once, by the way, and he gave me his condolences. Homestead High did little for Steve with his 2.6 GPA and I fear the same for Channing. I have no fear at all that he won’t succeed in life, by the way, it’s the journey from here to there that worries me.

I could go on about the other two boys. Each is different and each could be better served, but I think Channing makes my point.

MAYBE we can improve our schools significantly, but probably not much. Which is why I’d like to find alternate ways to encourage and develop excellence.

bjk
November 14, 2012 at 4:09 am

I realize this post isn’t about competitiveness, but I want to take issue with the “genius yield” idea. Geniuses don’t emerge sui generis, they are the product of a community. The home brew computer club, or whatever it was called, was essential to the growth of the computer industry. That’s the lesson I took from Bob’s PBS series. If it were simply a matter of brain power, China would have ten Silicon Valleys. They don’t. Before we hand our country over to foreigners for the illusory goal of World’s Number One Tech Superpower, we might want to think about what makes the US unique, and it’s not raw IQ.

mtlwriterguy
November 14, 2012 at 12:52 pm

I agree that there are geniuses, and then there are geniuses. You need to be careful which genius you back, but the problem is, it’s almost impossible to know up front.

Case in point: I just listened to a radio doc abioyt British wartime researcher Geoffrey Pyke. Pyke was a genius, and early in the war he came up with an absolutely mindblowing idea to — essentially — carve aircraft carriers out of icebergs. This became Project Habakkuk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk).

It was brilliant. It was out was out of the box. It was a potentially cheap and fast solution to the terrible losses German U-boats were inflicting on British and Canadian shipping in the early days of the war.

During the exigencies of war it blew past the Doubting Thomases and was turned over the Canadian National Research Council for immediate development. The problem? It didn’t work. It couldn’t work, for all sorts of reasons involving the tensile strength of ice to how fast icebergs melt and all those other inconvenient physical laws. The NRC scientists knew it wouldn’t work from the moment they pulled out their sliderules and realized they’d need giant refrigeration units and tons of steel merely to keep these beasts afloat.

But Pyke was a “genius” and they were overruled. Thousands of man hours and untold resources were then wasted on a project KNOWN TO BE IMPOSSIBLE, during the worst days of the Battle of Britain and the Battle of the Atlantic, when Britain and Canada were still essentially fighting alone. Because a genius said so.

By the way, this is a fascinating story in its own right. If you’re interested…

Any story of applied genius is also a story of inefficiency and (usually) failure. Ninety-five percent of technology startups fail, so why do we bother at all? We bother because the other five percent are the source of nearly all our economic growth. That 95 percent — even when it is measured in icebergs — is just a cost of doing business.

Since you mention World War II I’ll use it as an example. Prior to the Battle of Britain the only nation with true strategic bombing experience was Germany during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s where such bombing was a total failure. In 1940 the Germans were using essentially the same technology (He-111s) to deliver the same explosives over even greater distances to damage a larger, more diversified industrial economy. THE GERMANS KNEW FROM SPAIN THAT THEY WOULD FAIL IN ENGLAND. So why did they bother to bomb England? They hoped the British didn’t also know the bombing would not succeed and could be bullied into capitulation. It didn’t work, but for Germany it was worth the risk.

So, too, with icebergs. You mention the cost to the Allies, but what was the cost to the Axis powers of having to develop a response to this new potential threat?

Reagan took down the USSR with Star Wars — essentially a 1980s interpretation of iceberg aircraft carriers. Star Wars didn’t have to work to accomplish its goal.

mtlwriterguy
November 14, 2012 at 1:03 pm

That said, a good model for Geek Idol might be the “Dragon’s Den” business reality show which airs in many different version all over the world. It originated in Japan, then moved to Britain and then to Canada. The U.S. version, called “Shark Tank” was based on the Canadian version, with three of the same panelists.

Essentially, wannabe entrepreneurs have to venture into the Dragon’s Den to pitch their world-shaking business projects to five or six skeptical venture capitalists. If the pitch is good, any or all of the VC’s may offer to capitalize the project for an X percent share of the company. All versions of the show already do a lot in the tech arena, and I don’t think it would take a major modification to adapt it to technology. Just replace all the VC’s with tech people.

This is really the only reality show I watch regularly, and I’ve learned a lot about business from it. I don’t think it would take a very big tweak to adapt it to “genius” tech.

A child with the potential to be a great tech genius may not because we don’t teach them to how to enjoy the things they learn that would lead them to tech. They get the connection between PE, exercising and enjoying playing sports. They don’t get the connection between learning math and enjoying what you can do with it. Learning math in school is like running laps without ever getting to play baseball or football. Like sports we need to get math and science not just into the minds of kids but also into their hearts.

For those that are lucky enough to “get it” anyway and do so before it is time for science fairs things can really change. It helps to have someone that can be a coach who understands that science fairs are beauty pageants. You have to understand what the judges are looking for and how to present it. Unfortunately many teachers never made it very far in a fair and just see the projects as big homework project for extra grade points. The contestant needs to be both Jobs and Wozniak. As Wozniak he needs to work the science the best he can and understand, use and control variables. As Jobs he needs to be able to work the presentation and sell the project to the judges. It helps to have a coach who can guide the contestant in both of these roles.

All of my kids played sports in school but my daughter also decided to earn ten extra points for her science grade by making a science fair project. The award ceremony was a lot like the Oscar Academy Awards. “The nominations for third place in … are … and the third place winner is (very nerdy project name here) by … .” I was surprised by how much fun it was. Her backyard science project won and took her to regional and then the international competitions. If you have not been to a modern international competition you can’t imagine the energy and excitement. She also presented her project as a Power Point presentation at an invitational science symposium, where she had to give and defend it before a room full of people and a panel of judges. Though she didn’t win at either the symposium or the international competition nothing in sports ever compared to the fun and excitement of following her through these events. She learned from those events what it takes to win, what judges are looking for. She found she enjoyed that kind of research and being able to produce that level of presentation, even if she wasn’t crazy about being in front of an audience. In college she used those skills to win an international computer game competition. There were better games and contestants that were most likely better programmers (she hadn’t learned any programming until she was in college), but she best complied with the constraints of the contest and met the goals. She has degrees in computer science and psychology and is working on her Phd. I doubt that she is going to finish her Phd because she does not like the prospect of “having to” do a lot of publishing and needing to find and justify research funding after graduating. I suspect she will drop out and become an entrepreneur and compete in the market place with buyers as judges.

Genius is more than IQ. It is not the ability to regurgitate knowledge from the head or perform mental gymnastics. It is the ability to take knowledge to heart and make it one’s own and from the heart create. Genius is the ability to see beauty where others can not. The show I want to see is the one that shows us the soul of genius. The contest should not just show that the contestants have brains and knowledge. It should show their guts and stamina which are needed to create real products and their ability to present their creations so other will see the beauty and want to buy, invest, etc..

I agree. This argues strongly for a longitudinal character study. If we’re thinking of TV imagine everything from The Real World to Jersey Shore, where we learn far ore than we ever wanted to about essentially ordinary people, AND DON’T REQUIRE WINNERS AND LOSERS. Now do the same but make them not ordinary people.

The problem with reality TV (and I have some experience in this) is that ratings success is all in the casting and producers tend to take the low road in casting simply because it is easier, lower risk, and they wouldn’t even know a true genius if they met one. Look at the new Bravo Silicon Valley series for proof of that: there isn’t one person on that show I would hire.

Grunchy
November 15, 2012 at 2:44 pm

In my last year engineering we did a class that explored the rising rate of invention in the world. As time goes on, and population increases, we observed that the rate of invention has always been increasing — almost exponentially.

So no matter what time it is, it is always the time of greatest innovation in our history. One could say, yeah, it has always been the most exciting time to be alive – if you enjoy and appreciate raw innovation.

However, there comes a point that innovation outstrips even an enthusiast’s ability to keep abreast. As in, there becomes a point in time there is so much change that practically everyone feels they are losing touch.

Anyway, my point: why would we feel the need to accelerate this trend when it is already always accelerating?

Ronc
November 15, 2012 at 3:53 pm

“so much change that practically everyone feels they are losing touch…why would we feel the need to accelerate this trend…” I guess for the same reason that, in spite of global warming, we still feel the need to heat our homes in the winter. As Bob points out, we’re in an arms race for geniuses. The world may not need more, but we do in order to compete.

Unix guru
November 15, 2012 at 3:55 pm

What makes you think people want to come to the us to work, the pay is bad and the working conditions are deplorable, better to work in europe which has not become the third world race to the bottom that the us has become
Besides, the us does not want the brightest and the best anymore, if they ever did, they want the cheapest

Ronc
November 16, 2012 at 4:05 pm

What country or countries would you advise the H-1B people to aspire to go to (and why)?

Unix guru
November 16, 2012 at 5:14 pm

I don’t agree with outsourcing or immigration in a recession or letting the third world in destroying the tax base and wages and health and education benefits
Only the us does this to itself
Even Indian companies educate their own, only the us tries to destroy their own
Why import Indian and Chinese “geniuses” when you have your own people sitting at home unemployed
Every European country that has let the third world in has regretted it and it takes years to recover
Let the first world in if you must, but not the third world
If the third world was that great they would have done all these things
Basil and china and India are not going to do anything but steal, the Europeans colonised them we know what kind of people are there, no matter what the politicians and multinationals may say its a misstake
You have strikes across Europe and not a single one in the us in an election year in the worst economy

peterK
November 16, 2012 at 8:50 am

The commentary on “genius” makes me laugh. I think we can all agree there are many different kinds of genius. And genius leads to accelerated success as well as failures. It’s how you deal with both that really defines success.

Anywho Re: the show. It needs to be able to cause catastrophic failure as well as success. I think it needs to be able to embrace the failures, so the multi-stage competition makes sense (obviously success in the end is important). I think the show also shouldn’t focus purely on the traditional geek. It should have a team of assorted types. Music/Computer/Business. These should be supporting cast, but maybe they can hire/use the previous competitors, too. Oh and the support cast should make sense for the challenge.

There’s a lot of really cool things you could do. I think focus on things that are technically impressive and slightly outlandish would be key. Lots of the tech compo shows I’ve seen were geared for kids and the things they did were silly/trivial. It would be difficult, but you’d want to focus on tech that is actually pushing the limits of a field.

I dunno. This is all very idealistic and wishful thinking on my part, haha. Would it be possible to actually fund/watch/focus on high schoool or college teams already participating in research competitions? THAT would be awesome.

Ronc
November 16, 2012 at 4:39 pm

“A genius is someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight. There is no scientifically precise definition of genius…” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genius Yes “genius” is hard to define since one must first possess some level of education and insight in order to recognize an extreme amount of it in another. For example, I believed Einstein was a genius when I was a kid because my dad and others told me he was. After studying physics, math, and engineering in college, I knew he was one.

Callen
November 16, 2012 at 10:38 am

Can IBM’s WATSON be the host, and Alex Trebek be the dunk tankee ?
Sorry, I’m mixing genres. Just put him in the middle square.

robert e
November 16, 2012 at 2:28 pm

Focusing on raw talent and on puzzle solving in a game-show atmosphere is the wrong tack, I think. Doing so trivializes talent and its potential, and also would miss a golden opportunity to educate millions about how tech economies work. If, on the other hand, the show focuses on real achievements–on the real work of developing innovative ideas into practical and marketable implementations (for fabulous rewards)–the raw talent will come.

I think the “Idol” format could translate simply and easily to the realities of developing, refining, and marketing tech innovation. Those shows start with a hunt for talent, yes, but move quickly into a development and mentoring phase. As the “competition” progresses, the show becomes more about which of many talented contestants are best able to absorb criticism, listen to advice, adapt, and refine their unique “product”, while working with veteran performers, producers, etc.

What’s to adapt here? In order to succeed, geeks with great ideas also need talent, ambition, adaptability, teamwork, etc. Contestants would be screened and mentored by veteran developers, publishers, manufacturers and venture capitalists. As a side benefit, millions of youngsters would be exposed to what it takes to succeed in the real-life tech world, and how rewarding it can be.

Got more skills than ideas? Apply for the pool of hackers that the competing innovators will need to realize their projects.

Even the losers will get exposure to potential employers or funders (big or small); for those parties, the show is a big, intense, expenses-paid job fair/cattle call.

Here’s another real-life twist: rather than voting for their favorites, viewers can contribute to the kickstarter for that project (or votes get translated to funds from the show’s budget). For that matter, the judges can also vote development dollars. Working with budgets, and making projects attractive to funders, is part of the game, after all.

We have to define what qualities the contestants have to have. I suggest they need to have and be:

Currage
Curious
Creative
Patient

And for the competition, for being interesting for the contestants, it needs to fulfill a motivation to be a contender. The competition in it self needs to be worth it for the contenders (motivating) and the price must be motivator too.

The third thing is how to make the competition entertaining. How do we package the competition to be entertaining to watch and follow. Is it the price? Is it the talents competing? What?

Murray
November 18, 2012 at 10:03 am

Many great comments! The ideas of involving the robotics competitions in the schools, using hacker spaces and hackathons, etc. And I do have to agree with some others, the word genius is being applied in the sense of IQ. I think that’s the wrong facet of what you’re looking for. You’re wanting a quantified term for a qualitative activity. This is really about creativity. The best ideas and problem solutions I’ve seen don’t always come from the highest IQ in the room. Sometimes, it is the ability to synthesize many inputs into a reasonaed solution that solves it. Simply seeing the connections that no one else does. IQ tests try to quantify this, but they’re just a rough estimate. Run a scan check for firing neurons if it’s important to you.
As for the competition, my thoughts were across a few different formats:
1. Iron Geek: Pick an established and proven set of known geeks (Wozniak, etc.), and bring in a hungry, eager to show off talent (need not be a doctoral candidate), and give them a small team that they pick, and some required bits and pieces and assign them a reasonably accomplished project (build an M&M sorting machine), and given them a day to finish (similar to some of the crash movie making competitions). Give them Arduino boards or ASICs or whatever will serve as a basis for the project, and let them run. Film all of it, and edit down for time. It would be a mix of Iron Chef, some of the car customization shows and general nerdery all at once. I’d watch.
2. Follow a couple of the school robotics teams for a reality TV version of high school life and nerdiness. For once, give me a reality star that isn’t an underage pregnant girl or a middle aged couple that decided that having kids is a sport.
3. CrashDev – set up a competition in cooperation with college engineering/CS departments (IBM does this every year with their “Master the Mainframe” comp), talk to the CS/Engineering clubs early on, and set a project for them. Get a couple of sponsors to supply the needed materials they may not have on had, and film the teams progress and lives in general. Again, reality tv, without the pathetic characters I see in every other show.
4. Take the winning team from above, and give them a decent budget to develop an idea and take it to market. Bring in some advisers for critical steps, and educate the audience and the team on how to: market, build strategy, research their competition, patent, do’s and don’ts of competing, etc. This would be educational, and you could build in the personal lives of the members as well. Think “Real World” meets a serious start up.

That’s what came to mind reading through the above comments. I’d love to see those shows, even as a youtube channel.

Thanks for reading.

Murray
November 18, 2012 at 10:07 am

Just a short followup:
I think the other theme in my post above is that there isn’t going to often be a single individual that will end up on top (like in American Idol). Innovation is a team effort, but you will find the occasional Steve Jobs or Bill Joy in the crowd. Even still, they need their offsets to be successful.

Thanks

Juan V
November 18, 2012 at 7:54 pm

Why turn an intelligent person into a laughingstock for reasons of TV profit? Don’t forget that us nerds tend to be shy, bookworms and all else…
You may start with a simple list of tasks, some involving math, some building challenges, so there is no need of jurors to bully the shy competitors…. Let’s assume one or two events in every state, a couple more in the big cities, so you may start a stage II competition in a regional, and then the nationals. You will have, at the end, enough footage to edit as a very nice commercial product. That is fantastic, but the core issues are these:
-What is the purpose of the “show”? If creating a product, You should award management, seed money and marketing people to the winner; if the future of science, You should award prizes for the school (a “R.X. Cringely Engineering Lab”) and perhaps a scholarship for the winner; (if TV ratings, perhaps an association with Heidi Klum for a date with the next top model as a prize….) That is the foremost point in discussing the project,
-How will it be funded?: Both serious options are easy to fund, bearing in mind that VCs, for instance, will have first hand knowledge of the thousands of little projects that will be born out of this show, And product placement coming in near second.
– Will be necessary for the contestants to speak in public?; Could they appoint some marketing guy for pitching it?; How could You improve the fairness of the game helping them with some help in those areas? Business Plans do not come easily for geeks…..
-Mentors are a great asset for the personal growth of contestants, for bringing more people to next competitions, but will they be willing to speak to 20 contestants each?
– What will be the focus of the competition? The best programmer, the best scientist, the best engineer, the best product? Why eliminating a guy in the programming challenge if he is a very creative craftsman?; Is a HUD helmet a better product than a new router or a flushcrow (some contestant’s new product)
As Murray wrote with much more elegance than me, there are listsless possibilities for a viewable show, but the central question is ¿what will be the purpose?
Sorry for my grammar, me english very rusty, me foreign geek….

Ronc
November 19, 2012 at 3:16 pm

You said “…for a date with the next top model as a prize…” How about a date with someone in the same field of study? Also, your English is fine (except for the upside down question mark).

I wonder sometimes when I step in late like this whether anyone reads these comments, but here goes. I think there are both great ideas here and great points being made. TV, for example, ISN’T the best place for nuanced competitions, you are correct. And if you read my original post you’ll notice I never mentioned TV, though I suppose it was implied by the title Geek Idol.

Readers immediately jumped to TV as the medium and financial success as the reward.

I think this thing has to be tightly defined as a way of finding people who would otherwise fall through the cracks. In Accidental Empires I recall writing about a hypothetical hairdresser from Wyoming who had the potential to be the best programmer the world had ever known but was never in a position to demonstrate or use those abilities. My goal would be to find such people and give them the opportunity to change tracks if they liked.

Think of this like a lottery except with a skill component. Lotteries don’t require reality TV to be successful: they make their own excitement. This is key: there are many ways to make large group activities fun.

Make it a test. What you test and how you test and how you decide who’s the winner are all to be determined and are the real challenge here.

Distribute the test broadly and market it cleverly so it reaches the very outliers I describe. Maybe create a secondary reward system for those who recruit eventual winners — a finder’s fee.

The winner’s reward is a chance to change track — full ride scholarships with spending money attached. And don’t put a limit on the number of scholarships, just a minimum threshold score to qualify. The more winners the better.

Callen
November 21, 2012 at 9:08 am

LAST!

I forgot my bridged-taped glasses in here, and when I turned the lights on, you were still talking.

Just watched “Nova: Science Now”
Show: “What will the future be like?”

Eterna’s FOLDIT generates a broad-based participation, and can follow user improvements. I think the symbiosis between the “coordinators” and “participants” would lend well to your concept.

Murray
November 21, 2012 at 1:02 pm

Good points, and I did jump to TV as my first platform. I guess it comes from looking over kickstarter and the like. I see a lot of neat projects and ideas, and some that could use a bit more refinement. The part that I don’t necessarily love about seeing things like that is that it’s hard for me to keep upwith or watch to progress of a given idea (unless it’s imminently successful, then it gets press). I’d like to see some of the less obvious ones get some presence and some attention. I was also thinking of my own desire to consume the lessons available from the trials and tribulations of the team on the project. How did they succeed? How did they market? How did they get past the barrier between prototype and marketable product? I’m very curious, and I would be an avid follower if this were available in a consumable (within reason) format. I don’t necessarily want to read the post mortem in book form, but to feel like the day to day successes and failures are available in a blog or a show format. That feels much more immediate and I feel the wins and losses with the team, and not a detached, distant sense in reading it so far after the fact. I still appreciate books, but they allow for analysis in hindsight. While I think that’s cool, it allows for a very omniscient and overbearing analysis of projects like this. I guess I’m interested in creating the content in a number of layers: a show for the digest-driven consumer, a blog that would take me further into the day to day details of the projects, a book examining the post mortem and adding in analysis. If it’s a fascinating enough concept, I’d go after all of the layers. I see the TV/youtube delivery as the hook, and the rest of the layers as added context for those of us that are info junkies.
I admit, I’m looking for a way to get this to an array of people, and to make it interesting to them. If there is attention, there is further funding. I get the sense that if the competition is closed off, and not an open expose of the projects, it’s less understandable. Think if Summer of Code actually followed some of the projects. IF they had a blog, and maybe a video blog, or perhaps a final wrap up of “What I Did This Summer” essays of what was learned and how things went. I’d probably go to the site more often than when the comp is over to see what projects came out. That’s my two cents.

thanks!

Murray

Norman Rogers
November 24, 2012 at 7:29 am

I’m several years older than you, Mark and I’ve been an engineer and scientist since the late sixties. I greatly enjoyed your turn at Inforworld and likewise greatly appreciated your book, “Accidental Empires” (I’ve had interactions with several of your subjects). You were dead on distinguishing Bill Gates’s ambitions from the rest of the world (that he went on to rule).

Since your in revisionist mode — If you’ve not read it, I commend “Outliers” by Malcom Gladwell for more insight into Gates.

Here’s the thing — it’s not Geniuses that make the world move forward. It’s Jerks With A Chip On Their Shoulder. Or Smart People With Something to Prove. This is something I’ve learned many times, but a thought that was formed the first time I read Accidental Empires, in high school.

To create a genius-level workforce, we have to create a community of people who are willing to mentor, nurture, guide, and appreciate kids who show potential to Think Better. This community needs to offer kids the chance to learn and show off their efforts to gain admiration — nothing motivates geeks like pride. This isn’t a show, it’s a lifestyle. The internet is a perfect place for this to live.

For the outlier geniuses that make things happen, we also have to search for the personality defects and life challenges that drive the driven. I don’t know how to institutionalize this — except to say that American society is optimized to find these people and give them a chance to strive.